


I'm Not Through

by VillainVogue



Category: The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, why did I write this all it did was hurt me I'm so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-01 21:31:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2788436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VillainVogue/pseuds/VillainVogue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sadie fights to hold on to what little she has left of Frank. Frank's ghost fights to be heard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Not Through

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [I Linger On, Dear](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1306963) by [cosmogyral](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmogyral/pseuds/cosmogyral). 



> Inspired in part by the fic credited as well as this tumblr post (http://mariusperkins.tumblr.com/post/101978978937/camomility-you-are-not-making-that-tombstone). Title taken from the song "How to Not Be With You" by Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk.

_I don’t know how to not be with you._  
_I don’t remember where I’m from._  
_I know your touch, know everything you do._  
_Well, I know everything except how to not be with you._

_\--"How Not to Be With You", Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk_

 

* * *

 

Sadie pours herself a drink—scotch, which had always been more Frank’s drink of choice than hers, but she can’t quite bring herself to make a martini when there’s no-one to toast with.

She can’t bring herself to drink it, either, and just pouring it out wouldn’t be right. She merely stares into the glass for a long time before setting it down on the kitchen bar and burying her head in her hands.

Something brushes light as a feather against her ear, and that’s when the tears finally start, because she _knows_ it’s him, that he is there by her side just as he promised, but she can’t see or hear him, and she’s absolutely terrified that maybe she’ll never be able to again.

She wonders whether the power might come back if she sobers up. The thought doesn’t scare her as much as it would have when Frank was alive, because she hasn’t touched a drop since he died so she’s practically sober anyway, and it’s hard to see the point of drinking any more without him.

It’s hard to see the point of _anything_ without Frank. Even if he is still there, his presence is all too easy to overlook now that he’s a mere ghost, and invisible to her eyes. Besides, she’s barely been paying attention to anything since he died, and she’s more than a little ashamed to admit that she hadn’t so much as felt Frank’s ghostly presence until today. She barely restrains herself from taking the bottle and emptying its contents down the drain—Frank wouldn’t want that, even though she might be angry enough at the universe and at herself for letting him die to waste a whole bottle of good scotch, perhaps more.

Then later she finds out that she’s pregnant, and the idea of living in sobriety—and living at all—starts to sound much more appealing.

Of course, the birth is hell—the labour itself is bearable, but the knowledge that her husband can’t hold her hand, won’t be able to hold their newborn daughter, that thought hurts so much worse than the contractions.

That baby girl keeps her going, helps her though it, because even if Sadie’s lost Frank for good, a part of him lives on in little Elizabeth Doyle. Those dark brown curls, that smile that lights up the whole room, and the pout, that adorable little pout and those big brown puppy dog eyes. It hurts, it hurts so much, but it’s a balm too. It's far better than being alone in the apartment with no choice but to notice the curtains moving despite the windows being shut, glasses filling and draining themselves, all those little things that tell her that Frank is _there_ , just out of her reach.

And then Lizzie starts walking and talking, and with that comes complications. Sadie could handle her daughter’s near-constant chatter and tendency to get into places she shouldn’t be. She could deal with having to chase a four-year-old around the penthouse.

The thing that Sadie has a problem with is the conversations with the empty air. Especially when Lizzie finally tells her who she's been talking to, once Sadie plucked up the nerve to ask.

“It’s Daddy.” The little girl said very matter-of-factly, popping her thumb out of her mouth. “He says to tell you that he loves you very much, and don’t feel bad that you can’t see him or hear him yet, because he knows you will. Daddy knows a lot of things.” After Lizzie ran off to play, the tears started. Sadie had adamantly refused to cry since that first time after the funeral, not wanting Frank to see despite having no way of knowing for sure whether he was watching, but right now she simply doesn't have the energy to fight them.

It takes a long time for Sadie to collect herself. She’s just finished hiding all the evidence of her breakdown before Lizzie returns from her room, ready for her mother to tuck her into bed.

She nearly starts crying again when Lizzie asks, once she's settled in, if her father could tell her a bedtime story, but Sadie manages to nod her agreement before leaving the room, and, for the first time in almost five years, pouring herself a good stiff drink.

Scotch, the same scotch she’d nearly poured down the sink after the funeral out of pure grief and anger. Feeling incomprehensibly less hesitant than she had last time, Sadie knocks it back with the practiced ease she’d developed from all those years of drinking with Frank and pours herself another.

Drinking, Sadie discovers, is like riding a bicycle, and the speed with which she used to be able to finish off a bottle returns all too easily. She stops herself a touch reluctantly after four hastily consumed glasses, and makes her way back to Lizzie’s room, lingering in the doorway.

The story, it seemed, had just finished, for her daughter is already asleep. The lamp at her bedside had been turned off, an act Sadie could only presume was her husband’s doing. “Thank you, darling.” She whispers, not expecting to hear a response.

From somewhere close beside her in the dark came a barely audible “ _My pleasure, love._ ” in reply, and Sadie's surprised to find that she doesn't feel like crying any more.


End file.
